I read this a few years ago for the first time, but failed to really identify with it at any level until I came across it again last year. What changed? Why did I all of a sudden feel like I knew what he was talking about? The answer is not as obvious as you might think...
Just to be clear, I never felt like I was stuck in the "gray twilight" when my life was normal, pre-dec '09. If anything, I was thriving at the bright end of the spectrum and couldn't complain at all about where I was in life. There were always small failures and bad days, but they were outnumbered at a healthy level by some significant accomplishments and some great weekends. This is mostly how everyone I know lives; that's where the idea of "normal" comes to me from. Does the above quote refer to that life as the "gray twilight" then? I think when my situation changed so drastically, not only once but twice, I started having a completely different outlook on the same things I read or heard about before. As a defense mechanism, I looked at this same quote and now thought that the task I was involuntarily assigned was mighty indeed. I was to embark on this tough "journey" and either come out victorious or defeated. Beyond the fear, there was a sense of pride as opposed to the humility I was always portraying and I felt better reading something that directly says it's better to be set apart, to be given a chance to feel the rush of being victorious at the riskiest game one can play. Up until this point, I have found nothing else like this quote that helps me define what it feels like to be one of the fewest of my kind.
Finding this explanation was a turning point in my outlook on this entire experience. Regardless of whether I thought I was capable of winning, I had to adopt this attitude. It's not easy to handle the amount of pressure a treatment course like this has and interact with people with normal lives, so you need to have a justification for the great disparity between your circumstances and theirs. The twilight, once gone, is all you want back, so a reminder about why "suffering" is necessary for victory does help a lot. It promotes hope, because it implies there's a chance that one day it'll all be over and you'll tell it like an epic memoir. From the amazing distance of the future where time has created a soft enough cushion between now and then, in efforts to make the memories of this time more picturesque.
If asked the question of whether they would rather live a monotone, average life or a life with great successes but also failures and risks, I'm not sure what people would pick. I can only say this in retrospect, but if someone asked me the same question, I would ask for a hybrid of both. Teddy Roosevelt expressed a lot, but I think he may have overlooked the fact that it's a little unnecessary to experience so much suffering. You see, it eventually starts to take away from the sweet taste of the victory that is to supposedly come, because we always exaggerate the bitterness and understate the sweet.
Where do I get these thoughts? They come to me when at the core of my bones I feel this intense pressure everyday that is meant to signify the fruition of cells emerging into the bloodstream. The best description of this feeling I can come up with is that it feels like your lower back and chest is vibrating. Vibrating internally. This happens randomly and also when I squat to sit down or try to get up from a moderate to low seat. It sounds painless and harmless, right? I don't know why it's not though, especially when it's localized in my limbs as opposed to my core and lower back. I was hoping I would be immune to it by now as it's been a staple symptom for a while, because feeling like you're going to burst is always going to be scary no matter how many times you've felt it in the past and still made it to this day. At least it means that my cells are growing...give and take, folks.
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